has mp3, cdr changed your view of harder theft

"The tragedy of the commons wasn't a 'natural impulse'"

well, among primates, there is no private property. it is the natural impulse of every child to simply take what other children are holding. the social contract creates the public sphere, an oft-repeated historical event. and it happens in every family to some extent. but many families break down. anyway, the system of music distribution is going to break down. for every optimist who says, "last year i bought tons more cds than ever cos mp3 lets me hear more stuff" well yeah, but we all know cds will go the way of the floppy soon, and 98% of non-vinyl music will be software files in pcs, players, phones, and [anonymous] servers. great, buy your cds now while they still freaking exist; of course the real music aficionadoes are going to be in buy buy buy mode. as the market tanks the big fish eat the small fish and the aficionadoes are in a sense big fish compared to the helpless idiotic huge corps.

Where "plagiarism" = claiming to be the original author of a work that has been fully or partially lifted verbatim from another source, or merely insufficient crediting of sources within a work, no, my tolerance for plagiarism has not changed, and I consider said tolerance to have no relation to my mp3 habits.

I still don't understand the parallels you're trying to draw. When I download mp3s I am not plagiarizing (I am not claiming that I am the author of the work), I am not stealing cable (like hacking, I'm probably technically trespassing), and I am not looting museums in Iraq (I am not making copies of all the artifacts for myself and leaving the original artifacts in place). I may be "printing bootleg copies", but I'm not profiting off the sale of the copies. Is that a "better" or "less harmful" form of copyright infringement than good old-fashioned pirating?

I may be "printing bootleg copies", but I'm not profiting off the sale of the copies.
right, big difference from the point of view of the enforcement agencies, therefore also big difference from the pov of ethics? sheesh
you're profiting: by getting good free music files some of which you would pay money for. that the creators & distributors don't want you to have. "oh i still buy tons o cds" granted.

not that i want to argue about such a timeworn topic...

all i wanted to know, was has anyone else had their views about different types of theft changed because of their partaking of mp3/cdr? no, it's just me, eh? ok. there probably isn't any point in me trying to explain how it isn't a guilt feeling, but the opposite [liberation, forward-moving feeling]. or anything else like that.

In contrast, the guy who rips out a page of an MC Escher book in the library takes -- without the explicit assent of the public -- an artifact that is in a crucial sense "common to all" and now declares it his and his only.

I don't consider file-sharing an effective or even interesting method of "redress" against the crimes of the recording industry, by the way.

You so craaahhsseee, man.

Well, does it make a difference in the current law? How much of a difference? And is there more or less of a difference from a purely ethical standpoint? Or, are you refusing to make a distinction and claiming that any such ethical infraction is equally bad?

you're profiting: by getting good free music files some of which you would pay money for. that the creators & distributors don't want you to have. "oh i still buy tons o cds" granted.

What if all I'm doing is only sharing the mp3s that I have legally ripped from my own collection, and not downloading from anyone else? Do you see a (legal, ethical, whatever) difference between the two sides of the file-sharing equation— those who make available their mp3s, and those who download them? Are both parties committing theft in your view?

Ethically, I would think one's stance on copyright should be consistent with one's views on property as a whole. Is it wrong to have and enforce property rights at all?

As a matter of economics, I prefer to give my money to record companies and artists than to computer manufacturers and bandwidth providers. I haven't bought a new CD player in 10 years but I imagine I will buy a new computer every 4 years or so. Also I don't like what what networking does to the landscape.

yes, as i said above, i know these are not equivalent. the first question in ethics must be, who does this hurt. if one litters a biodegradable bag of fast food trash in a roadside ditch it's much, much less of an ethical violation than tossing one's used motor oil down there, or a truckful of toxic waste.

but my main concerns on this issue are these:

1. i grew up taping [a couple tapes a year] my friends' cool albums, hacking software every once in a while, etc. but these were totally peripheral activities: 90% of my computer time was legit, 90% of my listening was legit, etc.
2. now i'm an adult with money but it's strange that i'm so into music that i find myself ripping off the estates of some of the artists that i have gotten way into since mp3/cdr blew up big. i have about 50 cdrs total of mp3s/friends/library copies of the following artists:
fela kuti
serge gainsbourg
aphex twin
can & faust
elis regina & the tropicalista artists

...who i would say are my 5 big interests right now [mainly digging into the recommendedifyoulike's of each of them]. i think i have maybe 3 used cds by them also, and a whopping 1 cd bought new. these are all big name artists, easy to get ahold of via thirdhand means, and having saved money from not buying their records at full reissue prices i mailorder their more obscure scenester comrades.
...but it doesn't really strike me as very unethical. because the windows of the shop have been smashed, and millions of people with access to burners and dsl lines are helping themselves - it's a "shadow" looting; and because the industry which has controlled access to music has aims which have always appeared antagonistic to mine [limit my access to music, take my money, reward those artists who pander to the masses, but reward themselves more than their own artists]
3. after my stealing music [or "infringing copyright" if you prefer this euphemism for political, contrarian, or self-justifying reasons]for about 5 years, it is suddenly apparent to me that my views on other forms of theft have changed quite a bit. i don't personally want to rip up library books or anything like that, of course. but now i understand how people who do can do so, without necessarily being disgusting amoral people [i'm only just barely being facetious]. if someone is truly interested in artwork - let's say they're a "failed artist" - they may have a rather different viewpoint about slicing up library books, i don't know. it doesn't even have to be a carefully worked out viewpoint, but simply a habit of theirs which makes sense.

does that make any sense?

I don't consider file-sharing an effective or even interesting method of "redress" against the crimes of the recording industry, by the way.

well, it's certainly a slap in their faces, isn't it? it sounds as though you think the idea of "crimes of the recording industry" is faintly ludicrous, or that one simply hogs mp3s then retrospectively says "hey, i'm sticking it to the man."

..

Well, does it make a difference in the current law? How much of a difference? And is there more or less of a difference from a purely ethical standpoint? Or, are you refusing to make a distinction and claiming that any such ethical infraction is equally bad?

as to the current law, i think it's clear that no-one yet knows for certain, because there have been extremely few prosecutions of private consumers of pirate media. one thinks of the classic fbi warning at the beginning of videos, and how it is so obviously an almost meaningless law enacted at due to lobbying by big studios.
here i think the best analogy is to your very petty crimes against the common: littering, nudity, even prostitution. where-ever there is a question of considerable money being made in this sort of lawbreaking, the government rouses itself to defending the public interest; but if thousands of kids at woodstock go naked, a funny thing happens... what would be illegal on main street for one person sometimes loses any ethical force to shock if many many people do it.

so it appears with copyright infringement. yet is it really so? consider:
we don't steal books from bookstores because we are afraid we should be caught. but if most young people and many older ones did, and very few were caught [only those who seem to be reselling them], we would feel badly for the authors and wring our hands that the incentive to write books is going to tank. we wouldn't give a rat's ass that for every 50 cents in book value we steal from our favorite author, we're stealing 10 dollars from the book store and publishing house; screw them and their pecuniary interest going down the drain.
clearly, we are stealing mostly from the moneymen and not from the artist. this has a definite justifying-effect. furthermore, there are all sorts of examples in history where what once was a crime gradually becomes a vogue as it were: divorce, child labor, ethnic cleansing, "land reform", atheism, etc. some of these we now think are good, some bad. is it ridiculous to say that such shifts are world-historical, and that one shouldn't bother to struggle against the attrition of "intellectual property rights" because it's inevitable? no, but neither is the converse.

What if all I'm doing is only sharing the mp3s that I have legally ripped from my own collection, and not downloading from anyone else? Do you see a (legal, ethical, whatever) difference between the two sides of the file-sharing equation— those who make available their mp3s, and those who download them? Are both parties committing theft in your view?

when one shares one's mp3s that one rips from legally purchased media, one anticipates that others will come by and copy them; this is nearly identical to a corrupt bank teller tipping his friends who come by, or the corrupt waiter ring who give each other free meals. except that the stakes with mp3 are so ultra-small. it feels as wrong as stepping on an ant. if there's any ethical distinction to be made, the mp3 ripper is a tiny bit more guilty than the one who profits from the ripper's benevolent act, because he is the one breaking the shop window, and others are largely victims of understandable temptation as they reach in. legally, of course, the government is almost certain to provide a sort of blanket amnesty to mp3/cdr owners and concern itself with neutralizing tools which facilitate the breakage of the shop windows.

the fascinating problem is that such tools always have legitimate uses [cdr for data storage/indie cd production, mp3 for simple compression, file sharing networks for sharing non-copywritten media and software], and really it's the shopowners who must reinforce their glass.

However, the moral and ethical questions are separate from the economic ones.

yes, this is just what i'm starting to question.

Ethically, I would think one's stance on copyright should be consistent with one's views on property as a whole. Is it wrong to have and enforce property rights at all?

exactly! property rights derive ultimately from considerations of brute force, with palace guards, city walls, big barking dogs, baby shouting "mine!" the social contract then simplifies things - letting humans live more efficient, less guarded lives because we agree that certain property rights will be enforced. but are all people entitled to a plot of land or all peoples to a homeland? and are all intellectual property rights guarded by our social contract equally? no and no: in particular, intellectual property which is of economic value is guaranteed, and certain forms of privacy are as well [surely privacy rights are the other legal leg upon which copyright rests today, and when you think about it, privacy is a sort of elemental intellectual property].

...thought i'd write a lot as the thread has fallen off the main page.